Hardware-Software Functional Partitioning Of Embedded Systems Using Genetic Algorithms

The crucial step in the design of embedded systems is the hardware/software partitioning as it is made at the beginning of the design cycle. Functional partitioning is preferred to structural partitioning because software solutions as well as hardware implementations can be achieved. This paper analyses the cost function for hardware/software partitioning of embedded systems using one of the most suitable heuristic algorithm for partitioning (i.e.) Genetic Algorithm The algorithm operates on functional blocks for designs represented as Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) with the objective to obtain a Hardware or Software implementation that meets performance requirements with a reduced design cost. Results show that on increasing the timing constraint, the cost of the system reduces to minimum with performance tradeoff.